New Guide from EFF - Keeping Your Site Alive

San Francisco - Denial of service attacks – flooding websites with traffic in order to make them unavailable to the public – have become an increasingly popular way to take down or block Internet content. A new online guide from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) outlines how website operators can fend off these attacks and keep their sites alive and accessible.

"Denial of service attacks have been used by governments to silence online criticism as well as by activists protesting companies and organizations they don't like," said EFF Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian York. "Major websites often have the resources to keep running during a denial of service attack, but smaller sites – such as those belonging to independent media or human rights organizations – are sometimes taken down permanently. Our online guide is aimed at leveling the playing field."

EFF's "Keeping Your Site Alive" guide includes tips on choosing an appropriate webhost to provide the security and technical assistance needed to weather an attack. The guide also gives advice on how to back up and mirror content so it can be made available elsewhere in case the site is compromised, and includes tutorial videos with background information on the technical concepts involved. Denial of service attacks are an issue for websites across the globe, so EFF's guide is available in many different translations, including Chinese, Russian, Persian, and Arabic.

"Lack of resources or knowledge can mean some websites are more vulnerable than others," said EFF International Freedom of Expression Coordinator Eva Galperin. "We want to give website operators around the world the tools they need to protect their content and stay online."

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